Turkey is sending its journalists to prison

CAN DUNDAR saw the shooter approach and take aim at his legs. “He drew his gun, called me a traitor, and began firing,” he says, recalling the scene on May 6th outside an Istanbul courthouse, where he and a colleague have been standing trial. His wife grabbed the gunman, and Mr Dundar (pictured, right), one of Turkey’s best-known journalists, survived unscathed. Just hours later, he was sentenced to nearly six years in jail for publishing details of covert Turkish arms shipments to Syrian insurgents in Cumhuriyet, the newspaper where he served as editor-in-chief. The paper’s Ankara bureau chief, Erdem Gul (pictured, left), was sentenced to five years. Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who had called on the pair to “pay a heavy price” for revealing state secrets, has kept mum about the attack. Pro-government newspapers suggested it had been staged to attract sympathy for its target.

These are dark days for journalism in Turkey. The latest press freedom index by Reporters Without Borders puts the country in 151st place, between Tajikistan and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Censorship is the industry standard. News...Continue reading

Souce: Europe http://ift.tt/1OeqA4G

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